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Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Civilian, 7 CRPF men injured in fidayeen-type attack near Bijbehara

Ahmed
Ali Fayyaz

________

SRINAGAR,
Dec 7: One civilian and seven CRPF personnel were injured in a daredevil attack
by unidentified militants on a paramilitary convoy on way from Srinagar to
Jammu near Bijbehara in South Kashmir on Monday.

Eyewitnesses
said that three unidentified militants came on Srinagar-Jammu highway near
Semthan, between Sangham and Bijbehara, at 0950 hours and opened indiscriminate
fire from AK-47 rifles on a CRPF convoy. They said that CRPF’s road observation
patrol was on duty but it could neither stop the militants from coming on the
road nor from escaping towards a hamlet. Without stopping for a moment, the
targeted convoy proceeded towards Bijbehara.

Deputy
Inspector General of Police in South Kashmir, Nitish Kumar, told STATE TIMES
that three militants of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, wearing Pheran and hiding their
AK-47 rifles, came on the road and carried out a fidayeen-type attack on the
CRPF convoy. A number of buses were hit. In all, seven personnel on board two
buses sustained injuries. They included a Sub Inspector. A civilian, namely
Rayees Ahmad Dar of Wachi, also sustained injuries.

All
the three militants escaped as the CRPF did not engage them in an encounter and
preferred to move forward from the spot.

DIG said that the injured
were rushed to Srinagar and admitted to SMHS Hospital. “All of them are stable.
One of them has a little serious injury in his foot”, DIG said.

In Delhi, Home Minister
Rajnath Singh said that the CRPF convoy was attacked by “fidayeen” guerrillas.
He said he spoke to DG CRPF about the incident and was told that six to seven
soldiers were injured in the strike.

Spokespersons of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba
and Hizbul Mujahideen called newspaper offices and claimed separately over
telephone that the militants of their organisations had carried out the attack.
Hizb spokesman Burhan-u-din claimed that eight soldiers sustained critical
injuries in the attack. LeT spokesman Dr Abdullah Gaznavi claimed that a CRPF
vehicle was “completely destroyed”. He claimed that four soldiers died in the
attack while as 14 more sustained injuries. According to him, most of the
targeted men had sustained critical injuries.

CRPF spokesman Ashish
Kumar Jha said that there militants in army fatigues suddenly appeared from
nearby fields at Sangham and fired volleys of bullets on the CRPF convoy. He
asserted that it was a well-planned fidayeen
attack but the alert CRPF men foiled it. According to him seven personnel and a
civilian were injured.